The Construction Thread

[Saint Peter]

Only a dumbass waits for the last second. That would make McGraw a.........

The rumor in these parts was that information contained in bids was being leaked to companies with friends on the inside of the process, giving them an advantage in cutting just under the other team. Contractors began waiting until the last minute to try and level the field.

 

[chillywilly2]

Only a dumbass waits for the last second. That would make McGraw a.........

I know some people do that because they are getting inside information on prices. Usually its just between Generals and subs.
I always hated when my boss said I had to wait for somebody to feed me the right number.

 

[Saint Peter]

I know some people do that because they are getting inside information on prices. Usually its just between Generals and subs.
I always hated when my boss said I had to wait for somebody to feed me the right number.

Hey!

You work for GRD Mechanical???

 

[chillywilly2]

Hey!

You work for GRD Mechanical???

OOps

eddited...forgot your flower

and a kiss

 

[thør]

The rumor in these parts was that information contained in bids was being leaked to companies with friends on the inside of the process, giving them an advantage in cutting just under the other team. Contractors began waiting until the last minute to try and level the field.

Soon, false rumors would be flying about. We get some out of state bidders on projects and it's pretty funny when one of them takes a bush job. Working in a place where there are no roads, two barges a year, and a 2500' airstrip brings these guys down to reality, hard. And you're paying Bacon wages to locals who might show up for work. And you find yourself out at the landfill/dump scouring busted equipment for a couple of nuts and bolts.

LOL

 

[rosco rathbone]

"I swear I emailed it in yesterday....blame the ISP!"

 

[chillywilly2]

Soon, false rumors would be flying about. We get some out of state bidders on projects and it's pretty funny when one of them takes a bush job. Working in a place where there are no roads, two barges a year, and a 2500' airstrip brings these guys down to reality, hard. And you're paying Bacon wages to locals who might show up for work. And you find yourself out at the landfill/dump scouring busted equipment for a couple of nuts and bolts.

LOL

I love when they bid them jobs thinking there is nothing but money in them and end up broke. The sad part is they took a badly needed job away from a local contractor

 

[Fagin]

Late is Late
Closed is Closed

If I was second, I would be pissed if they took the late price. Hell, I would send in another lower price. Let them say..no, its too late now

I have files with unopened bids that came in late.

Only a dumbass waits for the last second. That would make McGraw a.........

I regularly watch contractors filling out the forms at the door mere minutes before an opening.

 

[thør]

I have files with unopened bids that came in late.

I regularly watch contractors filling out the forms at the door mere minutes before an opening.

It's a strange game.....

 

[Fagin]

It's a strange game.....

but it does have its rules.

 

[thør]

but it does have its rules.

Late is late......

 

[rosco rathbone]

Interesting essay in the NYT....it's pretty long; this is just the beginning:

"..... The television show “Deadliest Catch” depicts commercial crab fishermen in the Bering Sea. Another, “Dirty Jobs,” shows all kinds of grueling work; one episode featured a guy who inseminates turkeys for a living. The weird fascination of these shows must lie partly in the fact that such confrontations with material reality have become exotically unfamiliar. Many of us do work that feels more surreal than real. Working in an office, you often find it difficult to see any tangible result from your efforts. What exactly have you accomplished at the end of any given day? Where the chain of cause and effect is opaque and responsibility diffuse, the experience of individual agency can be elusive. “Dilbert,” “The Office” and similar portrayals of cubicle life attest to the dark absurdism with which many Americans have come to view their white-collar jobs.
Skip to next paragraph
David Foldvari

Is there a more “real” alternative (short of inseminating turkeys)?

High-school shop-class programs were widely dismantled in the 1990s as educators prepared students to become “knowledge workers.” The imperative of the last 20 years to round up every warm body and send it to college, then to the cubicle, was tied to a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy. This has not come to pass. To begin with, such work often feels more enervating than gliding. More fundamentally, now as ever, somebody has to actually do things: fix our cars, unclog our toilets, build our houses.

When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options. We idealize them as the salt of the earth and emphasize the sacrifice for others their work may entail. Such sacrifice does indeed occur — the hazards faced by a lineman restoring power during a storm come to mind. But what if such work answers as well to a basic human need of the one who does it? I take this to be the suggestion of Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use,” which concludes with the lines “the pitcher longs for water to carry/and a person for work that is real.” Beneath our gratitude for the lineman may rest envy.

This seems to be a moment when the useful arts have an especially compelling economic rationale. A car mechanics’ trade association reports that repair shops have seen their business jump significantly in the current recession: people aren’t buying new cars; they are fixing the ones they have. The current downturn is likely to pass eventually. But there are also systemic changes in the economy, arising from information technology, that have the surprising effect of making the manual trades — plumbing, electrical work, car repair — more attractive as careers. The Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. The latter will find their livelihoods more secure against outsourcing to distant countries. As Blinder puts it, “You can’t hammer a nail over the Internet.” Nor can the Indians fix your car. Because they are in India.."


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?pagewanted=1&em

 

[mypoliticalalt]

We maybe starting to pick up. I had 10 new projects come in this week.

 

[Saint Peter]

We maybe starting to pick up. I had 10 new projects come in this week.

Great news.

What kind of work?

 

[mypoliticalalt]

Great news.

What kind of work?

I work for a company that does post frame construction, mostly ag, some commercial, horse barns, that kind of thing. We just laid off 84 and our crews were starting to get nervous.

 

[rosco rathbone]

danger: scab electricians at work

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24sun3.html?ref=opinion

 

[where]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24sun3.html?ref=opinion

fucking hell! talk about 'friendly fire'

 

[rosco rathbone]

fucking hell! talk about 'friendly fire'

KBR is notoriously anti-union.

And this is what you get.

 

[where]

KBR is notoriously anti-union.

And this is what you get.

I get that, though I haven't really followed the thread. I just come in here for a testosterone bath

 

[rosco rathbone]

I get that, though I haven't really followed the thread. I just come in here for a testosterone bath

Isn't all Lit a stinking swamp of testosterone?

 

[where]

Isn't all Lit a stinking swamp of testosterone?

you get a better quality here though. I used to make crank up easels as well, so I can legitamitly be here, sort of

 

[Saint Peter]

Crank my weasel, Baby!

 

[rosco rathbone]

Crank my weasel, Baby!

She kinda threw that one right down the middle, eh.

 

[Saint Peter]

She kinda threw that one right down the middle, eh.

A goal is a goal and it does not have to be a great shot to count.

 

[rosco rathbone]

A goal is a goal and it does not have to be a great shot to count.

I prefer to use this thread to correct the misperception that we tradesman and engineers are a passel of horny brutes.

Refined gents we are. *sniff

sips tea